Aris Daya Singh (1894 - 1946) was popular writer of devotional and didactic verses. He belonged to a backard rural family of farm labourers called Mazhabi Sikhs. Having been thrased by his poor father, Santa Singh, because of his pursuit of learning, left home and started living as a recluse; learnt Punjabi, Hindi, anskrit, Urdu, Persian and Arabic: and studied scriptures of the Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims from their traditional teachers at their respective places of worship and instruction. He began writing poetry while in teens and published his maiden book, Fanah da Makan (Abode of Mortality), in 1914: followed by his most popular work, Zindagi Bilas (Discourse on Life), in 1915.
DAUDHAR DERA, a school for training Sikh musicians popularly known as Vadda Dera, was established in 1859 by Sant Suddh Singh (d. 1882) at Daudhar, village 22 km southeast of Moga (30° 48`N, 75° 10`E), in Faridkot district of the Punjab. Suddh Singh was a disciple of Thakur Didar Singh, a Nirmala saint ofManuke, with whom he studied Sikh texts. According to local tradition, a chance meeting with a bairagi sadhu, formerly a court musician to a chief in Uttar Pradesh from where he had migrated at the time of the uprising of 1857, led Suddh Singh to invite him to his Dera to teach classical music to the inmates.
DEVI DAS was, according to Bhai Santokh Singh, Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth, a devout Sikh of the time of Guru Hargobind (1595-1644), trained in martial skills. He took part in the battle of Amritsar (1629) in which the Sikhs worsted the attacking Mughal force led by Mukhlis Khan, the faujdar of Lahore. DEV GANDHARI. See SIKH DEVOTIONAL MUSIC
